Dropping in for a chat

Thought I would drop in for a quick chat about what I've been doing since my last post...

The City and Guilds course in Embroidery, which I'm doing with Distant Stitch is still ongoing and the details of all the work for that are on my other blog, which you can find at http://judithsstitchingjourney.blogspot.co.uk/ 
The topic for my current module is Animal Print, and to ensure that we concentrate on the pattern, rather than the glorious colours, we're working in monochrome and using patchwork and machine stitch. The course as a whole is definitely proving to be a challenge, but one that I'm enjoying. It is keeping my mind active, which was one of my reasons for taking it on in the first place.

 I had to stitch a tiny piece of needle-lace, inspired by this beautiful lizard ...

You can see the drawing I did of that section on his cheek, from which I took my pattern.

I'm a workshop addict, as some of you who have seen previous posts might well have gathered already. So, as if the City and Guilds wasn't enough, I can't stay away from other classes in the meantime, and this year is proving to be no exception.

At the beginning of February I signed up for another of Kathy Shaw's http://www.shawkl.com/ crazy patchwork classes, and this is what I've done so far.

 A bare winter tree,

and a second tree, this time with leaves,

 a cute little blue beaded spider,

a little dog barking at an oversized butterfly, and a grape vine.

And then, yesterday, something a little different ... a bookbinding class at our local art materials shop. This was huge fun and we produced five little books during the day.

The pink book is a simple pamphlet stitched book, the orange and brown ones have different varieties of Japanese stab binding, and the striped book has a proper hard cover, with end papers and bound spine. The fifth book, which I didn't photograph has a coptic binding. As you know, I've made quite a few fabric books over the years and this will feed into that particular addiction quite nicely.

Finally, a photograph I took recently on a rare (for this winter) fine day in our local park. Black lace trees against a beautiful blue sky.